Tesla and Space X, CEO, Elon Musk has always talked about how dangerous and life-threatening artificial intelligence is to humanity. He has tweeted about AI and openly commented against companies that are using AI. Musk finds himself most concerned by the Google-owned ‘DeepMind’ project that uses AI technology.
He commented that the nature of the AI Google is building would crush all humans at all games. “It’s basically the plotline in ‘Wargames’,” Musk commented. In ‘Wargames,’ a super computer trained to test wartime scenarios accidentally triggers a nuclear war. Why is Musk comparing an outrageous dystopian movie to a very established company’s AI technology?
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What Is AI?
Artificial Intelligence is a simulacrum of human intelligence. The only difference is that AI is operated by machines and computer systems. AI collects and analyses data for correlations and patterns. After analysis, it uses these patterns to predict future states. For example, a chatbot when fed with examples of text chats will learn to produce lifelike text exchanges with people. Specific applications of AI include expert systems, natural language processing, speech recognition, and machine vision.
Since AI has gotten its hype now, every possible big company brags about having AI technology in their company. Usually, the AI tech they are referring to is a single component of AI, machine learning. A foundation of specialized hardware and software for writing and training machine learning algorithms is required for AI to work. Python, R, and Java are popular programming languages for AI.
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Why Is Elon Musk Scared Of AI?
Many famous people oppose the rise of AI, one might not have thought Elon would be that person. He is far from being a technological pessimist. His future thinking has brought in electric cars to even possible colonization of Mars. One might think that a man like him would be very much interested in AI, but a big NO! He is the main voice opposing emerging technologies that involve artificial intelligence.
In a conference at MIT in 2014, he forewarned that AI is a “biggest essential threat” and compared it to “summoning the demon.” He was very forthwith to comment that AI is the greatest threat to the human race. In an interview with Recode‘s Kara Swisher, he said that AI has the ability to surpass humans, as much as humans surpass cats.
“As AI gets probably much smarter than humans, the relative intelligence ratio is probably similar to that between a person and a cat, maybe bigger. I do think we need to be very careful about the advancement of AI,” He Added.
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Can Robots Really Take Over The World?
AI is powerful enough to destroy the world. Hence, there is no space for making mistakes and learning from them. “We should plan ahead. There certainly will be job disruption. Because what’s going to happen is robots will be able to do everything better than us. … I mean all of us,” said Musk, speaking to the National Governors Association.
AI experts thought that it would take at least 20 years before a computer could beat a human playing Go, a strategy game that requires strategical thinking. Last year, AlphaGO, a subsidiary of Google‘s DeepMind, “absolutely crushed the world’s best player. And now it can crush and play the top 50 simultaneously and crush them all,” Musk said.
The pace of progress AI does is remarkable and that is the exact reason why AI is a major threat to humanity. “You can see robots that can learn to walk from nothing within hours, way faster than any biological being,” Musk added.
The scariest thing about AI is that it is not a physical thing rather it is a deep intelligence in the network. It can start a war by spreading fake news and spoofing email accounts and it can manipulate information. “I have exposure to the most cutting edge AI, and I think people should be really concerned by it,” Musk warned. We have to be proactive in regulation than be reactive in the case of AI.
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Does Elon Musk Have A Solution For This Problem?
He said in the interview with Swisher that a government committee must be formed. Musk adds that the committee should gain insight into AI and other technologies that are possibly a threat to humanity. “But especially, AI,” Musk specified. With that insight and knowledge about the technology, the committee must come up with rules in consultation with the industry that gives the highest probability for a safe advent of AI.
Musk came up with OpenAI, a nonprofit foundation, to ensure and reduce the probability that AI power would be monopolized. He proudly states that OpenAI is about the “democratization of AI power.” Another solution Musk came up with is Neuralink. It is one of the futuristic strategies of Musk.
Neuralink is developing neural interface technology. Simply put, it is inserting microchips into people’s brains. So that, it could record brain activity and potentially stimulate it. This technology could also help study and treat neurological disorders. “We will not be able to be smarter than a digital supercomputer, so, therefore, if you cannot beat ’em, join ’em,” Musk added.
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